Not a full build per se. More of a series of mods. I hope that's allowed
This one started as a Geprc Mark5 DC 6S ELRS BNF I got for my birthday. It flies amazing out of the box. Geprc does a really great job with their build quality and tuning. I already have an Analog Mark5 for freestyle, so I wanted to turn this into a medium-long range quad.
Adding an M10 GPS module was easy and gave me confidence to push the range further than before. I got the matching green TPU GPS mount that goes on the rear.
After reaching about 2.5km out, it became evident that a longer VTX antenna would be required as the battery was blocking it on every return home. So, the stock O3 antenna was replaced with a long AXII Duality.
I found the ETHIX S5 props to be very smooth and somewhat efficient but I would also like to test some biblade props in the future. I got a set of bi-blades but never got a chance to flight test them, as one broke while putting it on. So, I'm back to tri-blades.
There is a huge space at the front of the craft for a powered beeper. So, I removed the dinky little buzzer that comes stock and zip tied a Geprc Super Buzzer in that space. This super buzzer has the button mounted on the edge making it easier (for me anyway) to press versus the ones that have the button flat on the pcb. The other thing I really like about the super buzzer, is you can unplug the leads from the buzzer when it's on the bench (my wife and dog hate the beeps)
Shortly after installing the AXII antenna, I started having problems with the GPS. It would cut out during flight, with the OSD elements disappearing completely. Sometimes they would come back, and coincide with a burst of interference in the video feed. This was really concerning and was even happening on the bench. I ended up removing the GPS from the TPU mount and placing it at the front of the craft. I don't use a GoPro on this drone, so I shrink wrapped it and zip tied it to the carbon fibre plate above the O3 camera. Boy, what a difference that made! Not only did it fix the GPS cutting out, but now I can lock onto 10 sats indoors! This is a huge improvement overall - it locks onto more satellites, quicker, and holds onto them the whole flight. I can only guess that the new antenna is either poorly shielded and/or higher gain than the stock and was spewing video RF into the GPS.
An Auline 6s 3000mAh Li-Ion was added later for longer flight times. Here's the first flight with the new battery:
Next problem: jello in the video feed. You can see a lot of it in the tail end (~4:30) of the video above. This one took a bit to resolve and I'm not sure it's completely fixed. Since I believed in the build and tune, I started looking at the O3 camera itself. I know lots of people needed to glue the camera internals to eliminate their jello, so I gave that a try. It had no effect at all. Like the newb I am, I started changing stuff without testing after. I swapped the camera with another drone with O3. Changed props to some lightweight Gemfan SL 5125's. Reversed the prop direction. Went around the whole craft applying blue loctite and tightening everything. I ran all the motors on the bench, watching for spikes in the gyro graph, but they were all smooth. Enabled dynamic idle and tweaked a couple of the PID sliders (total hail mary - I have zero idea what I'm doing) then took it for a spin:
And the jello is mostly gone! I still see some twitching in the video that Gyroflow isn't smothing out. Minor stuff and probably just wind related. Overall I'm happy with the build and can't wait for it to warm up so I can fly more!
Update: the Lumenier O3 antenna is too long and keeps getting bent. I've swapped it for a Flywoo bipolar O3 antenna that isn't quite as long. I also purchased a 4000mAh 6s 21700 pack from RotorVillage and got the longest flight yet - 14m 20s. The AOS Supernova motors are interesting - yes, they can be efficient but only while excercising strict throttle control... high speed cruising and punchouts really strain the battery. After a flight, the battery is hot but the motors are not even warm. I have now had two really hard crashes (one into a tree, one into the ground) and the frame has held up admirably.
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Great flights here and very cool that you're using a li-ion on the mk5! Most of the twitchiness seems to be taking place when you're higher up and at lower throttle while descending, as Jodie noted. Considering how much wind can still be present up there on the calmest of Canmore days, not a lot you can do on that front other than trying to adjust your flight path/limit your exposure to the wind when descending. That said, the following may help:
- I found that the TPU camera mounts on the mk5 transferred the least noise to the O3 cam when mounted snug via the 4 screws but not overtightened. Just tight enough to prevent the cam from moving up/down during flight worked best for me.
- The mk5 comes with a decent tune out of the box but that can definetely be improved upon. Since you're switching from the stock motors to something different, even more reason to go through a full tuning process. If you haven't already, check out Chris Rosser's Betaflight tuning videos on YouTube for eliminating as much frame resonance as possible with the least amount of filtering.
Great flights there, I looked at the jello you spoke about. In the first clip it's clearly happening as you descend at low throttle. In the 2nd clip it's almost completely gone, 5:12-5:18 has something that might be jello, but it might just be an artifact from encoding for youtube, so i'm not sure if it's a real indicator to evaluate. If you still see lil things like that I would say turn up your d gains a lil
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Nice build and great video truckz! I'm planning to build something similar and am doing some research right now. I assume you got these 9min flight time with one 3000mAh liion pack, is that correct? What's the weight of that build? And have you also tried heavier payloads like a gopro or even bigger batteries?
Yes, that's correct. It's around 700g with the 3000mah pack. I don't fly with a GoPro on this build, but I have another Mark5 (X frame) with an old GoPro mounted and can tell you the added weight affects flight time but that's it - it doesn't "feel" heavier or noticeably affect flight performance. I did recently try a bigger, 4000mah 6s 21700 pack. I didn't weigh it but got just over 14 minutes of flight.